Andrea Rossi continues to provide periodic updates on the state of the 1 MW plant, and sometimes he has reported that the plant is running at less than full power because they have had to take a reactor out of commission to perform repairs.
Yesterday, for example, he wrote: “Right now in the plant it’s 10.05 p.m. of September 1. The 1 MW E-Cat is working at 3/4 of the power because we have problems in one reactor, The other 3 reactors are stable and well.”
Rossi has said the same thing before, and I wondered whether the same reactor was breaking down over time, or if this was something that happens to all reactors periodically. In response to my question, and the same from another JONP reader, he wrote:
“Every reactor needs repairs now and again, and we are keeping record of all the reparations, to understand all the necessary modifications to be made to improve the technology.”
I suppose that one reason for having a year-long test of this first plant is to see how robust the reactor and its individual components are handle the wear and tear of industrial use. The records Rossi’s team are keeping will certainly be useful if they are getting ready for widespread production of commercial plants.
You would want to know the weak spots and do all that you could to minimize problems before having these plants in industrial use. That said, with any brand new product that gets heavy duty use, I would expect that there will be problems that crop after plants are deployed, but I think it makes a lot of sense from the Leonardo/IH perspective to do this extensive trial run — even if it does delay the E-Cat’s emergence onto the world stage.
